After throwing them off the ice Saturday morning and watching them suffer their third straight defeat that evening, coach Trent Yawney gave the Blackhawks a day off Sunday.
It seems appropriate, then, to assess where the Hawks are going.
For a team that harbored some hope of winning the Central Division, a more modest goal of just making the playoffs now appears to be in peril as the Hawks begin just the second month of the season.
Traditionally, NHL players, coaches and executives have pointed to Christmas as a marker for where teams are in terms of playoff positioning. When the NHL was much smaller or when the league operated under divisional playoffs, Christmas seemed like a reasonable date.
But since the NHL expanded to 30 teams and went to a conference-based playoff format, not only has it become harder to make the postseason, it also has become more difficult to overcome bad starts.
By Christmas, it might be too late to get into the playoff picture.
The cliche of “taking one game at a time” may serve the Hawks well because a look at the bigger picture is not a pleasant sight. For a variety of reasons, the Hawks begin November in a very large hole.
The NHL went to conference-based playoffs, in which the top eight teams in the conference qualify, in 1993-94. Since that time, teams in the Western Conference have needed an average of at least 85.1 points to make the postseason. In the last four seasons, however, teams have needed at least 91.7 points.
Assuming 90 points is the magic number to qualify, the Hawks need to amass 84 points in their last 71 games. After playing at a .272 clip in the first 11 games (six points of a possible 22), the Hawks would have to play the rest of the way at a .592 pace to reach 90 points.
Making that pace more difficult is the schedule the Hawks face in the next six weeks. After splitting the first 11 games relatively evenly with five at home and six on the road, the Hawks begin a stretch Tuesday night in which they will play nine of the next 12 and 14 of the next 19 on the road, where they are 1-5.
The Hawks play an NHL-high 20 of their first 30 games on the road. The next highest percentage of road to home games is Boston, with 18 of its first 30 on the road.
The schedule doesn’t turn in the Hawks’ favor until Dec. 16, their 31st game of the season. By then, if the Hawks have played .500 in the 14 road games, they still would need to win all five home games just to get back even at the 30-point mark.
Included in the 14 road games is the annual Thanksgiving trip, which recently has been a nightmare for the Hawks. In the 2003-04 season, the Hawks gained just one of a possible 12 points. The season before, they collected two of 14. This season’s trip lasts five games.
Another hurdle the Hawks have to clear is the fact that it is very difficult to overtake teams to get into the playoffs, even as early as Dec. 1.
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The Hawks were tied for 14th in the West through 11 games. To have a chance, they likely will need to get to ninth or 10th by Dec. 1. Since the playoff change in 1993-94, teams in the top eight in the West by Dec. 1 rarely have fallen out.
In just one season among the last 10–the 2001-02 season–have more than two teams that were among the top eight on Dec. 1 fallen out of the playoffs by the end of the season.
That season, four teams–Colorado, Phoenix, Los Angeles and Vancouver–made charges after Dec. 1 to make the postseason, knocking out Edmonton, Calgary, Minnesota and Dallas.
But that was the exception. In the 2003-04 season, six of the top eight teams on Dec. 1 made the postseason. In 2002-03, seven of the top eight on Dec. 1 held on to their playoff spots.
If anything is in the Hawks’ favor, it’s that much has changed in the NHL since the lockout ended. There already have been 19 third-period comebacks by teams in the first month, the same number as in the entire 2003-04 season.
So perhaps it won’t take 90 points to qualify, and maybe more movement in and out of the eight playoff spots will occur as the season rolls on.
But while much has changed in the NHL this season, so far, the Hawks haven’t changed with it. Already that is putting their postseason hopes in serious doubt.
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